We go hands on with End of Nations

When last we saw End of Nations at GamesCom last year, we were excited. Whilst MMORTS games are around, never before has a AAA game maker stepped up to the plate and tried to deliver. It was still early days back then, but over the last ten months the game has grown and evolved, and is finally starting to take form. At a secret location somewhere in the heart of London, Petroglyph and Trion took us through the game as it stands today, and even let ourselves get our hands on it for a couple of hours.
 

Autobots, Roll Out!

Even though the game is not due out until later this year, things are already starting to come together. The main map interface is looking very slick, and shows a very high-res representation of the world and it's various territories. Some of these maps will be the scripted co-operative campaign missions against the Order of Nations, whilst others will be the PvP maps that the two different factions - The Liberation Army and the Shadow Front - fight over for control and bonuses.

From this map you can also access places like the armoury - where you can pick your load out for matches in terms of unit composition, and also customise those units in terms of looks - they'll be several skins to choose from , as well as basic colour changes. There's a talent tree for your commander class, which will require you to think specifically about what you want to do as you won't be able to obtain everything, allegedly. At the moment, the talent trees are unique for each class, and will have new structures, new units and new abilities to unlock. The example we were shown looked a bit limited by MMO terms... even RTS terms in some respect, but there's still a way to go yet.

The PvP - which can range from sizes of 2 v 2 or 4v4 up to 16 and 26 per side, and the campaign map is persistent and tracks the progress of each faction. Petroglyph are the moment decided whether or not to make it seasonal and have a resets etc... but there will be leaderboards, clan/army support, and all of the full functionality you'd expect for something like this. The amps are going to be primarily objective based.



When you start getting to numbers as large at this, especially in an MMO, lag becomes a key issue. End of Nations uses client server technology to help deal with this, and it also allows for players to observe or even join games in progress, which is not something you can do currently with online RTS games. We hope this holds up when they come to stress testing and most importantly, when it goes live. Lag could seriously hamper people's ability to enjoy this game.

In terms of gameplay, tactics will play a major part in this game, and it should be good. In our testing phase, there were two teams of about 7 or 8 each fighting over a large map with multiple capture points and unique structures. Each player was reduced to a small force, and it was a pretty frantic battle. Despite the other team getting the upper hand, our team managed to hold our own within our base, and there were even multiple strikes behind enemy lines.

Each map is uniquely crafted and revolved around a specific theme, although there are some elements - like cash generating buildings, power generators, and forward command posts that are in every map. In this map, the unique feature was a uplink array that would give the controlling team intermittent mortar strikes against the enemy base. Players get tactical currency that they need to build up in each map in order to re-spawn units, call in tactical structures, and even deploy super weapons.
 

Burn Baby, Burn

You sometimes hear about games with interesting or ambitious ideas, and you worry about how of that will make it into the finished product. We're happy with what we've seen so far with End of Nations, and we're confident few cut backs have been made. At the time of writing, nothing new was heard on the player 'bases' that you were supposed to have, so maybe they have been cut out, but we'll keep you updated. RTS fans should definitely be excited about this game and we personally can't wait to play some more.

Most Anticipated Feature: We'd like to try out a 26 vs 26 map.